Good Sir,
It has been pleasure to listen to your podcast, but today as you denounced a tool rather than the deep depravity of the human heart I figured that my time will be better spent elsewhere. I understand that few Europeans will ever understand the American “fascination” with guns, but the simple explanation that we are only a couple hundred years removed from religious persecution at the hands of your countrymen should get you started towards a better understanding. I was flabbergasted by your comments about militias and “this day and age”. We Americans have spread the blood of our young men all over the free world to keep it that way, and it seems that places with trucks running into pedestrians, acid attacks, and grooming gangs are all too eager to criticize and advocate for change when we have an issue with craziness on this side of the pond. We celebrate a free exchange of ideas over here, but we are smart enough to see the evil around us and if you gents want to lay down your swords that’s just fine, but we’ll hang onto ours and thank you for letting us alone. We haven’t reached an age of civility or enlightenment, and as I read my Bible, I am amazed at how we haven’t changed as humans in any substantive way. I will continue to thank God for being born in a country that allows many freedoms and accept the responsibility to defend those freedoms with a firearm,

Garth – I’m sorry that you are away…it’s always good to read and interact with things that you don’t agree with. But just in case you read this let me answer some of your points:

1) Denouncing a tool as well as human sin? – Yes – I denounce pornography, drugs and other such ‘tools’ and I do think it is a good idea for there to be governments and laws in order to restrain evil. I follow the Bible in that regard.

2) You justify your gun laws because you are only a couple of hundred years away from religious persecution by Scots? This is a somewhat skewed version of history – to say the least! Do you really believe that you having a gun is what prevents religious persecution?

3) I’m not quite sure what America’s involvement in numerous wars all over the world has to do with Americans killing themselves with guns. I assume that those Americans who got involved with these wars did so as part of the US army who supplied the guns – and did not go overseas with their own weapons. The sacrifice of American lives (as of many others) in defending freedom is something we should remember with thanks (and sorrow), but it should not be used as a reason for civilians today in the US to have access to automatic weapons.

4) You ‘celebrate a free exchange of ideas over here’ and yet you will shut me out because you can’t cope with that ‘free exchange of ideas’. Don’t you think that we have a ‘free exchange of ideas ‘ over here as well?!

I’m sorry to have upset you and I thank you for your post – which very starkly illustrates the problem that I was writing about.

Thanks for the response Sir,
I’m not a writer, speaker, or theologian and am sure that I do a poor job of making my position clear on the page. We may disagree on guns, but we are brothers in Christ and I think we should dwell on that. I would relish an opportunity to chat about guns, politics, culture etc. , but I would guess that will have to wait until none of the aforementioned matters anymore.. God Bless

Peter Hitchens, a Christian commentator who writes regularly on his blog for the Mail on Sunday, regularly cites the explosion of the use of ‘recreational’ mind-altering drugs as the major – and common – factor in the recent spate of mass killings. He digs out the evidence (which is often hidden from public view) in every case and calls for illegal drugs to be kept illegal and for the Police force to actually police them. Combined with the USA’s prolific ownership of guns, we have the ‘perfect’ mix – deadly tools wielded by men with damaged brains.

Love the podcast and wouldn’t turn you off over a disagreement, I’m happy to hear what you have to say.

I am an American living in New Zealand, and as such have a much different view on the 2nd Amendment and guns in America. The Founders fought a civil war against their government for what they perceived to be their freedoms and if you are familiar with the Revolution War, you will know the first move of The Crown was to try to disarm the Colonists at Concord. Had they succeeded the Revolution may have ended before it began.

When composing the Constitution, the reason they made the 2nd Amendment the 2nd is they felt all the others depended on it. They use the term militias because the militia was a non-government entity, it has largely gone away but the idea behind it has not, the other freedoms we posses must be protected and can not be protected without fire arms. It would to no good to form a militia without arms.

If you think human nature has radically changed since the writing of the Constitution, I would point you to the Battle for Athens. In 1946 several vets returning from WWII found their local elections being rigged and when they ran against the corrupt officials, the corrupt officials did what corrupt officials do and tried to rig the election.

The service men were able to fight back against the corrupt officials because they were armed and proved they had indeed won the election.

I accept these weapons are very dangerous and create a problem in the hands of those whose hearts are set on doing as much damage as possible. The trouble is if the populace does not have these weapons, they are defenseless against a government that desires to take away other freedoms. We have seen in living memory what happens when a government turns its weapons on its own people… Those people need to be able to fight back.

Thanks Sam….I don’t think its reasonable or correct to say that the only reason we have freedom is because we have guns. And I don’t think you really expect Americans with guns to take on the US army! There are reasons for having a gun…taking on the government isn’t one of them…

I appreciate the response. I would agree the owning of weapons isn’t the only reason we have freedom, it is just hard to protect those freedoms without guns. When someone wants to take a freedom away, it is much harder to do with an armed populace.

I wouldn’t expect colonialists to take on the most powerful army of their day, and yet, they did… If being armed isn’t going to stop the government, being unarmed isn’t going to improve the situation.

If any government decides to turn its weapons on its own populace it will do so with bigger and ‘better’ weapons than those own by the populace. For instance, look at the current situation in Hong Kong. Do you reckon that, even if the people of Hong Kong were to engage in an armed battle with the Chinese authorities, they would stand a chance against the might of the Chinese army? I don’t think so. Times have changed in the USA and the big boys need to put away their toys.

If having weapons isn’t enough to persuade a government from killing it’s own people, how is not having weapons going to improve the situation? I think China would rather not have the world see armed conflict in Hong Kong. If the free people of Hong Kong disarm, China will have one less thing to worry about. It isn’t necessarily about beating China in an armed conflict, sometimes just showing the will to fight is enough and fighting with sticks isn’t going to be as effective as fighting with guns.

Love the podcast, love how you stretch my thinking. One correction, a semi automatic weapon will not fire 100 rounds a minute. A fully automatic weapon will. I agree the fully automatic should be only for military use but a semi automatic can only fire as fast as you can pull a trigger. If you can do that your superman.